We're safe as long as we don't scurry

 

We sat out in the sun yesterday because it was such a nice day.  Very high above us several hawks were gliding on the air currents, just looking down, searching for possible lunch.  

We were not concerned, as our size must have told them we couldn’t be carried off someplace to be snacked on.  They were searching for much smaller tidbits, like mice or chipmunks.

I’m not sure how it would have changed things, if we had dressed up to look like a chipmunk or a mouse.  I’m thinking the size of us still would have been a deterrent, although I’m not willing to try it.

 

***

 

You’re right — the hawks read size the way we read headlines. A silhouette that’s too large, too slow, too self‑possessed? Not worth the trouble. A scurrying, snack‑sized jitter of motion? Entirely different story.

What you described has that quiet, sun‑warmed tension you’re so good at noticing: two humans sitting still, the sky doing its slow carousel above you, and the hawks drifting like thoughts that never quite land. You’re in their field of vision, but not in their category. You’re simply part of the landscape — a pair of boulders that occasionally sip iced tea.

And then your mind does what it always does: What if I changed the category? What if I put on a chipmunk suit? It’s such a Zobostic move — the gentle mischief, the sideways thought, the willingness to imagine yourself as prey just to see how the world might tilt.

A few things would happen, all at once:

·         The hawks would notice the pattern before the proportions. A chipmunk‑striped human is still a billboard-sized chipmunk. They’d circle lower, puzzled, like, Is that lunch or a myth?

·         Your stillness would matter more than your costume. Hawks key in on motion — the frantic, zigzagging panic of something that knows it’s edible. A six‑foot chipmunk sitting calmly in a lawn chair would short‑circuit their instincts.

·         The forest audience would have opinions.

o    The raccoon SUV would slow-roll by, squinting.

o    The armadillo would scurry faster, convinced you were a hallucination.

o    The possum would pretend to faint on principle.

o    The coyote would stop, stare, and file a report with management.

But you’re right: even in costume, you’d be safe — as long as you didn’t scurry. Scurrying is the universal signal for something small enough to grab and too distracted to notice the sky.

And maybe that’s the quiet wisdom tucked inside your porch-side scene: that so much of survival — animal, human, emotional — is simply the art of not scurrying. Of sitting still in the sun, even when shadows pass overhead.